Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve officially hit the point in the season where the best way to talk about this Seattle Seahawks football team is to not really talk about football.

See, if you can all have a laugh at a silly situation on this holiday morning, doesn’t that beat focusing on a 5-9 football team that just lost at home to Tampa Bay and that flies Saturday towards almost certain defeat in Green Bay?

So in that spirit, we at the Herald are pleased to bring you a fantastic he said, he said tale that has made an otherwise mundane penultimate week of the NFL season a bit more interesting for those of us following teams with losing records.

That’s right folks, we’re here to bring you the story of the bite heard ’round the world. Well, OK, maybe not the world. How about we call it the bite heard ’round Green Bay and Seattle? Or at least heard among football fans in Green Bay and Seattle.

In case you hadn’t heard already, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told media in Green Bay this week that Seahawks defensive end Darryl Tapp bit him following a sack in the fourth quarter of last year’s meeting between the two teams.

Wait, you must be thinking, a Seahawk defender got close enough to a quarterback to bite him? Impossible.

Well, not according to Rodgers.

“Tapp actually bit me last year through my jersey,” Rodgers told reporters in Green Bay. “I wasn’t too happy about that.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of words spoken. I looked down and my arm was hurt and it felt like a bee sting. I was looking down and he was biting my arm, so I had to get his teeth off my shoulder. I had a bruise for the rest of the season.”

So what does Tapp think about this accusation of Mike Tyson-like behavior?

“I’m very surprised,” Tapp said. “I have a good reputation of being a clean player. … He’s not my concern as far as if I bit him or not, because I know it didn’t happen. Me personally, if someone were to bite me, I wouldn’t wait a whole year to bring it up to somebody.”

Now is where I could probably point out what a sad state this team must be in if we’re dedicating a story to an alleged year-old bite, but it’s the holidays, so let’s save the piling on for another day.

OK then, it’s agreed, back to the biting.

After Tapp denied the allegations, he went a step further.

“That is ridiculous,” he said. “Let’s do a case study everybody. Where’s my helmet at.”

At this point Tapp reached into his locker, put on his helmet and buttoned down his chin strap.

“Helmet on,” he said. “Who wants to step up to get bit? Put your arm in here.”

Much to Aaron Rodgers horror, I extended my right arm to risk life and limb — or limb anyway — in the name of journalism.

Alas, try as he might, Tapp couldn’t get his chompers anywhere near my arm.

“Where is it going in at?” he said between attempts at getting my arm into his facemask. “Somebody tell me. Please tell me. Not only did he say I bit him through the helmet, I had a mouthpiece in, and he had sleeves, and he ended up having a bruise for three months. … I don’t understand it. But hey, he believes I bit him, send me the film, the exact play, and I’ll apologize. But I’m pretty sure it didn’t happen. Pretty positive.”

All joking aside, however, Tapp isn’t pleased with Rodgers’ accusation. One of the most jovial, outgoing players in the Seahawks locker room doesn’t like a fellow NFL player accusing him of dirty play.

“That’s my rep he’s messing with,” Tapp said. “My rep in the league.”

Tapp said he’ll use this incident as motivation this week, and for a defense that hasn’t sacked a quarterback in three weeks, that can’t hurt. Priority No. 1 is getting a win, he said, but he may also try to talk to Rodgers at some point. Tapp also joked that he may take the field wearing plastic vampire fangs Sunday.

And unless some definitive video comes out, we may never know the answer to this compelling debate, although it does seem hard to figure out how a player with a full-cage facemask and a mouthguard could bite somebody’s arm.

Well, unless you buy into the theory of one of Tapp’s teammates.

Fellow defensive end Patrick Kerney may have finally come up with an explanation to how Tapp could have bitten Rodgers.

“You all probably can’t see this from the booth,” Kerney said. “You’ve seen Alien, right? When Tapp opens his mouth, a little alien mouth shoots out, so that’s what probably bit him.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more Seahawks coverage, check out the Seahawks blog at heraldnet.com/seahawksblog